Visual communicator on a mission to do good well.

4025: Behanced vs. a professional website

For freelancers, he [Glen Sansberry] says, social media is a chance to get your work out there, and there are a number of websites like Behance that are growing very quickly in popularity…Behance allows designers to upload their portfolios where visitors, including recruiters, come to search (and potentially hire) talents. This past July, the site launched a collaboration with LinkedIn (LinkedIn) that enables users to upload their portfolios directly to their LinkedIn accounts, meaning that recruiters and employers have twice the chance of spotting their work. [source]

01| The importance of maintaining a sense of design community when your a freelance graphic designer who is probably working from home. It’s important and beneficial for you to get feedback on your work and to see what other designers are doing, not just to promote yourself and get a job.

02| Greater likelihood of getting seen. More likely than not, strangers don’t typically just type your name into Google to look for you, by having social networking sites specifically for artists, you have a greater opportunity of being seen. Sites like Behanced even have rating systems which show you the most popular portfolios.

03| Also, of course, this promotion of self and the connections you make through these new forms of media can potentially lead to career opportunities.

So, why shouldn’t designers/artists just display their work using these sites and not just make their own?

For me, it’s a matter of being able to show off another skill. Behance allows you to format your space to a certain extent, but this might not be enough. Especially as graphic designer, having your own website establishes that 1) you can create a functional webpage, which may or may not be complicated and amazing, and 2) that you can design a web page so that it’s aesthetically appealing.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be one of the other. I’ve already created a Behance account, fumbled around like a mom creating a Facebook account, and then gave up. En lieu of this article however, I’m motivated to give artistic social networking another try.

This entry is part of an assignment in an English class called “Writing for the Web: Digital Story Telling” in which we have to post research relevant to our final project. My final project will be the creation of a professional website.